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“Not after ten years, Jonas. You waited too long.”
He stared at her for several harrowing seconds before he turned and walked out the door. Not for a minute did Bridget think she had seen the last of him, but she leaned weakly against the counter, grateful for the momentary respite.
So he was going to be living right next door—it would take all the strength she had to keep him at a distance. She’d really been lonely too long. Dating Jim took the edge off that for now, she liked and trusted the guy, but somehow … he seemed more like the brother she’d never had than a lover. She ought to be honest and tell him the truth: he really wasn’t the man for her.
But right now, she needed someone by her side. The whirlwind of conflicting emotions that Jonas set in motion was just too much for her to handle. All he had to do was get close to her to make her heart beat faster. One kiss and her pulse raced—he’d interpreted it correctly. How long would it take before his persistence wore her down, she wondered. Already she was beginning to have twinges of doubt. He sounded so sincere. But he had a lot to prove to her before she truly believed anything he said. An awful lot.
Jonas had made a fool of her once. Bridget refused to let him do it again. She turned around when the outer door opened.
“He’s gone,” Molly declared with satisfaction. “I hope you told him off, Mom. He is the man Grandma was talking about, isn’t he?” This time she wanted a definite answer.
“I believe so,” Bridget admitted.
“What’s his name?”
“Jonas Concannon.”
Molly took an apple from the pottery bowl on the counter and bit into it. “Maybe Grandpa can make him leave.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Bridget reprimanded, but only half-heartedly.
“Why not?”
“Because Jonas is our neighbor, whether we like it or not.” But Bridget wasn’t certain how Molly really felt about Jonas. Her mother’s indiscreet chatter didn’t help matters. “You have to remember that your grandma doesn’t always think before she speaks,” she said carefully. “But I don’t want you repeating that to her. She would be upset if she knew what you’d heard. I hope you aren’t listening at doors—are you?”
“No. May I have a cookie?” Molly rattled the package that hadn’t been opened yet. “There’s a couple of broken ones. I’ll eat those first. You said they don’t have so many calories.”
“You don’t have to worry about calories yet,” Bridget replied. “But it’s true that a broken piece has less calories than a whole cookie.”
Just one of a thousand little strategies to not eat the whole damn package in one sitting, as she was sometimes tempted to do. She opened the package and gave Molly three, then put the rest in the cookie jar.
The little girl ate them between bites of the apple.
“Want some milk?”
“I won’t be hungry for dinner if I drink milk.”
Bridget thought it over. “I’m going to be a bad mother and let you have cookies and milk for dinner, how about that? Plus the apple.”
“I love you,” Molly mumbled with her mouth full.
“And I love you.” She poured a glass of milk and let her daughter finish eating while she stared out the kitchen window, lost in thought, her chin in her hand.
“Do you like him, Mom?”
That was an impossible question to answer.
“I don’t know. Would you hand me the milk?”
“Did you know him before he came here?” Molly lifted the milk container from the kitchen counter and gave it to Bridget.
“He used to live not too far from Randolph.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.” Bridget wished the questions would end, but Molly rarely left a subject alone until her curiosity was satisfied.
“Did you know him then?”
